Roberto Romanello's little brother Antoni is in the field today after winning a live satellite last night. He sat with former EPT champion Michael Tureniec and the newest member of Team PokerStars Pro Max Martinez. You may remember Martinez from such shows as The PokerStars Big Game.
The Welshman is off to a good start as well. He raised from mid position, bet the flop and bet the turn versus Artem Metalidi. The Ukranian gave up on the turn when the board read .
It may be early in the day but the players seem willing to get 300 big blinds in at will! We just saw Simone Mennini deep in the tank, facing an all-in bet of 19,200 on a board reading , a tank he stayed in for at least three minutes. When he finally surfaced he did so with a fold and Lasell King mucked his hand.
We mentioned a nasty looking table a few posts ago but we have found two more tables where fireworks are set to fly due to the sheer number of "names" seated at them.
One table is the home to Team PokerStars Pros Arnaud Mattern and Lex Veldhuis, Steve van Zadelhoff, former November Niner Filippo Candio, American David Peters and one of the most in-form players on the European-based World Poker Tour's Andrea Dato.
Just a short walk from that table is one where Team PokerStars Pros Victor Ramdin and Matthias De Meulder , PokerStars Team SportsStar Fatima Moriera de Melo, Martin Jacobsen and Heinz Kamutzki. Rather them than us.
We're starting to get used to seeing Arnaud Mattern hobbling around a tournament room. The fragile Team PokerStars Pro has a second chair to prop up the leg he injured at EPT Madrid. If that's not enough he also has Lex Veldhuis, sat to his left, to deal with.
Mattern has gotten off to a great start though by concentrating in attacking those to his right. He explained how he won a hand after making a move and hitting. Velduis was absent from the big blind when the cut-off raised to 250 and David Peters on the button called. Mattern called from the small blind to a see a (one club) flop where he check-raised the cut-off's 350 c-bet up to 1,550. Peters called in between but folded when the cut-off called the raise.
The turn fell and Mattern led for 2,950. Call. The river was and Mattern fired 6,100 into the swelling pot. The cut-off said he had to call with two-pair. It was no good though as the Frenchman opened for a turned straight.
As predicted, Day 1b looks to be full of big names and famous faces. Here is a selection of them.
The nastiest table we have found so far has Kevin Vandersmissen, Eugene Katchalov, Mathew Frankland and Bruno "Kool Shen" Lopes seated at it. It should be an interesting table to say the least.
Welcome to start day number two here in Campione on the ninth floor of Europe's biggest casino. We're expecting a much bigger field today with many big names flocking to this little part of Italy that is situated within Switzerland. Indeed, on the glorious ten-minute walk from our hotel just outside Campione I bumped into the English trio of Chris Moorman, John Eames and PokerStars qualifier Mathew Frankland halfway through their lunchtime paninis.
Elsewhere PokerStars Team Pro Liv Boeree has just walked into the press room to say hello, she'll be joined today by teammates Lex Veldhuis, Victor Ramdin and Italy's own Dario Minieri with many more also expected.
The tournament is due to start at 2pm, but given that we had about a 15 minute delay yesterday, it wouldn't be surprisingly if we had a similar delay today given a lot more players will be turning up for the first time.
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, a tank he stayed in for at least three minutes. When he finally surfaced he did so with a fold and Lasell King mucked his hand.
(one club) flop where he check-raised the cut-off's 350 c-bet up to 1,550. Peters called in between but folded when the cut-off called the raise.
and Mattern led for 2,950. Call. The river was 
and Mattern fired 6,100 into the swelling pot. The cut-off said he had to call with two-pair. It was no good though as the Frenchman opened 
for a turned straight.
